I don't think the Coast Guard should charge, but there should be enough of a tax on the cruise industry to cover the average cost of responding to their problems. The money is going to come from somewhere.

vpb:I don't think the Coast Guard should charge, but there should be enough of a tax on the cruise industry to cover the average cost of responding to their problems. The money is going to come from somewhere.

It was taxes and increased regulation that drove the cruise industry to register their ships overseas in the first place.

dittybopper:vpb: I don't think the Coast Guard should charge, but there should be enough of a tax on the cruise industry to cover the average cost of responding to their problems. The money is going to come from somewhere.

It was taxes and increased regulation that drove the cruise industry to register their ships overseas in the first place.

Yeah, screw those safety, labor, and environmental standards. We're a Liberian ship! Hell, even oil rigs requiring a flag can use that workaround. The Deepwater Horizon was registered in the Marshall Islands on the other side of the frikkin' planet.

Hunn dodged the issue of how much Carnival pays in federal taxes, but replied that cruise industry ships that call at U.S. ports "pay hundreds of millions of dollars in annual fees and taxes to federal, state and local government agencies in the form of port head taxes, dock fees, wharfage and other fees."

Haha, they are using the same excuse people who download music off the internet use to justify not paying for music.

vpb:I don't think the Coast Guard should charge, but there should be enough of a tax on the cruise industry to cover the average cost of responding to their problems. The money is going to come from somewhere.

SockMonkeyHolocaust:Hunn dodged the issue of how much Carnival pays in federal taxes, but replied that cruise industry ships that call at U.S. ports "pay hundreds of millions of dollars in annual fees and taxes to federal, state and local government agencies in the form of port head taxes, dock fees, wharfage and other fees."

Haha, they are using the same excuse people who download music off the internet use to justify not paying for music.

So does the entire Merchant Marine fleet, but those guys aren't causing 90 mayday calls for the same fleet in 5 years. Carnival needs to get its fricken act together. They're a luxury cruise company, not a coast guard training exercise provider (well they are really, but thats not their stated purpose of dragging 4000 people out to sea in a POS floating hotel)

Babwa Wawa:dittybopper: It was taxes and increased regulation that drove the cruise industry to register their ships overseas in the first place.

There are always going to be lower taxes somewhere. If we didn't allow them to operate in the US without paying taxes, they wouldn't have registered elsewhere.

It's a pretty simple rule change - your ship cannot be registered with any country where less than X% of your cargo or passengers are loaded or unloaded.

You know what happens then?

The cruise lines stop using US ports, and they fly the people who want to cruise to a foreign port for the start and end-points of their cruises. So you lose any revenue you get from port fees, taxes, local sales of supplies and fuel, and the employment of dock-side cruise workers.

The cruise lines stop using US ports, and they fly the people who want to cruise to a foreign port for the start and end-points of their cruises. So you lose any revenue you get from port fees, taxes, local sales of supplies and fuel, and the employment of dock-side cruise workers.

I don't think so. 70% of Americans don't even have f*cking passports. Not to mention that it would take 800,000 airline seats to embark and debark a single cruise ship for a year.

xanadian:Gee, we could almost just not allow Carnival to use US ports anymore....

Carnival doesnt operate American flagged vessels. Which ever flag the ship has determines how these ships are treated. We probably have international agreements that makes it difficult to close American ports from a specific fleet.

cman:xanadian: Gee, we could almost just not allow Carnival to use US ports anymore....

Carnival doesnt operate American flagged vessels. Which ever flag the ship has determines how these ships are treated. We probably have international agreements that makes it difficult to close American ports from a specific fleet.

One of the reasons no cruise company operates a US Flag vessel is the regulation that any vessel flying a US Flag has to be built here or get a special exemption from congress. Norwegian managed to get that exemption on a couple of ships, by buying the SS United States and promising to restore her, the then sold her after they got the exemption.

Back when I was in the Coast Guard we caught this guy who would repeatedly make false distress calls over the radio. He would sit outside out station and watch us scramble the boats and head out in the search.

I'm sure Admiralty Law has some right of salvage stuff in it, but would Carnival buy back their ship?

Plus, with the right political stockholders, they could always claim a terrorist ate their homework, crippled their engines, stopped up their toilet, forgot to clean enough for the norovirus to hit, etc.

vpb:I don't think the Coast Guard should charge, but there should be enough of a tax on the cruise industry to cover the average cost of responding to their problems. The money is going to come from somewhere.

Carnival is the most evil company and has dodged paying the most money to the US government recent company that people remember from the news so it's time to pretend to care about them so people think you actually do things in congress

Tom_Slick:cman: xanadian: Gee, we could almost just not allow Carnival to use US ports anymore....

Carnival doesnt operate American flagged vessels. Which ever flag the ship has determines how these ships are treated. We probably have international agreements that makes it difficult to close American ports from a specific fleet.

One of the reasons no cruise company operates a US Flag vessel is the regulation that any vessel flying a US Flag has to be built here or get a special exemption from congress. Norwegian managed to get that exemption on a couple of ships, by buying the SS United States and promising to restore her, the then sold her after they got the exemption.

the SS United States and promising to restore her, the then sold her after they got the exemption.

Farking bastards, this made me so angry after looking at her rot for so many years

I understand the point the Senator is trying to make, rescue operations do cost money. But there does exist a culture of helping other vessels in distress, because you never know when your ship will break down, and you don't want to be the one stranded out there in that big blue wasteland.

Doesn't the Coast Guard have the authority to prevent a ship from sailing or from entering/leaving US waters? Maybe a blockade or grounding of some sort is in order until a full safety inspection is done on the entire fleet (perhaps to the tune of $42 million).